


Substantiation

by unwindmyself



Series: curious shapes shift in the dark [11]
Category: True Blood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Exposition, Fix-It, Gen, Vampire Family, agency and choices!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-09
Updated: 2013-11-09
Packaged: 2017-12-31 22:52:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1037329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unwindmyself/pseuds/unwindmyself
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cohesive rebellions mean everyone's on the exact same page, everyone being on the same page means gratuitous exposition, and there's just no way around it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Substantiation

**Author's Note:**

> Part three, "The One That Got Away."

“Who’s going to tell me what I missed?” Eric asks dryly.

“Other than the catfighting?” Tara mutters.

“Other than the catfighting,” he confirms.

“We didn’t get very far,” Nora says tightly.

It’s no surprise, Eric thinks, that his sister’s instinct was to set up around the longest, most official table in the place, lay out pens and paper so neatly arranged.  Habit, right down to the seat she chose for herself.

“Let’s start with what you two learned last night, then,” Nora says to Pam and Tara.

“He’s got minions,” Pam says sweetly.  It’s hard to tell if she’s being serious or not.

“Minions,” Nora repeats, tapping her pen against her lips.

“Or something,” Tara takes over.  “Some sorta vaguely menacing vampire moving crew carryin’ boxes outta his ol’ plantation home.”

Jessica wrinkles her nose.  “So he’s stayin’ in New Orleans?” she asks.

Pam and Tara shrug.  “A blown up building seems like a pretty good lair for the second coming of a demon god,” Pam says.  “It’s not like we stopped the thugs to inquire, though.”

“Lilith – the true Lilith isn’t a demon, not strictly speaking,” Nora interrupts before she can stop herself.  Her left hand flies up to her sternum, fingernails scraping against bare skin.  “Lilith was the first of our kind, and her blood was collected upon her death and preserved.  For whatever reason, it developed hallucinogenic properties, but Lilith in her original form was technically no more demonic than you or I.”

“So it’s like human religion,” Tara says.  “Not _totally_ fucked in theory, but the whole thing got all turned into an excuse to kill and subjugate.”

“Yes and no,” Nora frowns.  “Lilith and the vampire Bible have always lent themselves to vampire supremacy, advocating more explicitly depending on interpretation and translation.  There have been factions who took the word more peacefully, which has been the more popular read in modern times, but the potential has always been there, and the popularity of the more violent construal isn’t surprising given the inherently predatory nature of vampirekind.”

“Sounds like human religion to me,” Jessica declares.  “Can’t have power without havin’ power _over_ something, right?”

Nora nods just slightly.  “The hallucinated Lilith that appeared to us certainly did inspire murderous acts, and that was in turn possibly influenced by – well, Salome, she’d done…”

She falters.  Suddenly it’s gotten far too personal, and although Eric doesn’t yet understand entirely, he understands enough to know it’s his job to jump in.  “Lilith first appeared to us the night we took her blood,” he explains, because this part of the story might be better told by an outsider to the whole thing.  “But there were subsequent appearances, some triggered by more of the blood.”

It’s not so far in the past that the memory of it, of even the image of her Maker being ripped apart, doesn’t make Nora whimper; that sound, so much more inherently vulnerable than anything else she’s shown to the group, causes Pam and Tara to raise their eyebrows, as sympathetically as they'll let themselves, and Jessica to frown deeply, even though none of them know quite why.  Eric just meets her gaze, nods in an almost intimate reassurance: _it’ll be all right, I’ve got you_.

“Other hallucinations were had by some of the chancellors, who were told that they were chosen to drink Lilith’s blood, all of it,” Eric continues.

“That’s what happened to Bill,” Jessica clarifies.

“Bill was one of the ones who had that vision, yes,” Eric agrees.  “Chancellor Agrippa was another, causing Bill to murder her in order to ensure his own ascension.”

Nora gasps. 

Jessica gasps.

“Fuckin’ of course he did,” Tara mutters.

It’s not like any of this is a surprise, exactly.  Everyone’s been operating on the assumption that save the accounted-for few, everyone who was in that building is now very much dead.  There was no way they couldn’t be.  It was very probable that Bill was the one responsible, even.

But hearing it said is somehow different.

“What happened?” Jessica asks softly.  She only knows what they told her before, which wasn’t much, and the sick feeling in her chest that comes and goes and has been since that night.

Eric doesn’t answer right away.  Pam and Tara look curious in spite of themselves, like they know they want to find out what’s driving this whole mess but they also know they don’t want to show they care _too_ much, and Jessica’s the one who asked so clearly she wants to know, but Nora – he knows his sister isn’t the most outwardly emotional of women, but the ways she’s reacted when Salome has been mentioned mean he knows to tread carefully.

But she’s nodding at him, jaw set resolutely, and so even though she’s twirling her pen frantically without realizing it and all he wants to do is reach out and still her hand, he sets out answering the question.  “Salome – that is, Chancellor Agrippa,” he begins.  “Bill arranged to be present with her when she took the blood and he switched it for another vial, this one laced with silver.”

“Shit,” Tara says.

“She drank it, presumably weakening enough that Bill could do away with her,” Eric continues.  It’s clear in his tone how little respect he has for the fact that Bill couldn’t just fight Salome like most vampires would.   “He hadn’t been sure it would work, which is why –” Here he raises an eyebrow at his sister – “Why he permitted us to be let into the building.  In case he couldn’t do it alone.”

“Motherfucker,” Nora whispers, and if anyone looked close they’d see red just starting to rim her eyes.

“He explained this when Sookie and I went to talk to him, right before he took the blood,” Eric says.

“Monologuing like a fuckin’ supervillain,” Pam interjects.  “Classic.”  Classically dumb and therefore classically Compton.  Of course they would have stayed to listen, too, not just run the fuck out of there; Sookie would have been all wide-eyed and disbelieving, just like her.  Pam at least knows better than to say any of that, though.

“It did help to clarify a few things,” Eric says. “But the most important message to be gleaned from it was that he’s gone absolutely insane.  Even before he drank it he had.”

“What else’d he say?” Jessica asks shakily.  “He told you about – about the chancellor, but, but did he mention… anyone…”  Her, she means, and it’s pretty obvious; after all, Bill’s apparently a psycho asshole but he’s still her Maker.  Or he was.

Eric shakes his head, a sudden jolt of sympathy going through him though he wouldn’t know how to express it if he tried.  His own Maker’s suicide had been, well, considerably purer to say the least, but the choice that Bill made to end his life as he knew it and take on another is still a kind of suicide.  No child should have to go through that, especially knowing their Maker went without giving them a second thought.

“Oh,” Jessica murmurs.

“He did tell Sookie in rather plain terms about the vampire Bible’s stance on her kind,” Eric says, just in case it winds up being relevant.

Everyone around the table but Tara nods, leading Tara to ask, “What the hell stance is that?  Her kind meanin’ fairies?”

“The vampire Bible states that fae are an abomination,” Nora explains.

Tara leans forward, her palms hitting the table with a dull thud.  “Seriously,” she exclaims.

“Sookie heard it,” Eric reminds.  “She knows to be careful.”

“So her psycho ex-boyfriend also has an apparent hate boner for her entire fuckin’ species?” Tara clarifies.  “What the hell does that mean for her?”

“Ideally, nothing,” Nora frowns.  “Vampires are meant to drink of humans, not other hybrids.”  She can’t imagine now how anything that smelled so heavenly could be entirely wrong, but then - well, it wouldn't be unheard of for religion to put stock in arbitrarily declaring some pleasures temptations, would it?

“Which y’all came to realize when you’d been drinkin’ vampire blood,” Pam cuts in.  “Makes sense.”

“Not helpin’,” Tara mutters, rolling her eyes; Nora would never say it, but that’s not a half bad point.

“But this situation being about the least ideal that could be imagined,” Nora continues, “It may eventually lead to attempted genocide.”

“How’s that different from the Billith plan for humans?” Pam questions.

“The humans would be kept for food,” Nora explains.  “The fae would be slaughtered.”

“Shit,” Tara says again.

“’Cause of fairy blood lettin’ us daywalk, right?” Jessica asks.  She’s learned some things in this life.  “Since we’re supposed to be all of the night or whatever?”

“Precisely,” Nora says.   “Humans are meant to feed vampires, but any human with fairy blood would go against the Bible’s teachings.  Shifters and weres, by virtue of being different sorts of halflings, would also be considered extraneous.”

“That’s like… half the people we know, though,” Jessica exclaims.  “Sam, Luna, Alcide –”

“Does your bullshit holy book say anything about mediums?” Tara demands.

“It’s not _my_ holy book,” Nora points out, just slightly prickly.  “Not anymore.  But the blood of a medium is no different than the blood of a human, so there’s no special danger.”  She tilts her head at Tara curiously.  “Why, do you know one?”

“The fellow mixed up in the necromancy business,” Eric tells her.  “That’s her cousin.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Nora exclaims, nodding.

“What about Jason?” Jessica asks suddenly.  “He’s Sookie’s brother, would that – I mean, he’s –”

“Jason isn’t fae-bearing,” Eric explains, like it’s obvious.  (Well, Jessica did fuck the boy, she’d have noticed if he was when she did.)  “Not all descendants of fairies are.  There’s nothing magical about his blood and there never has been.  He’s a very good-looking boy, as his type goes, but not extraordinary.”

“Unless you’re talkin’ extraordinary levels of denseness,” Pam interjects.

“An’ extraordinary levels of bigotry, apparently,” Tara adds.  “I dunno what the hell got into him, I swear he didn’t used to be such a dick, but we ran into him last night at Bill’s and he’s still goin’ off on his racist-ass diatribes.”

Nora makes a note of this on her paper.  “Something happened to him in that field,” she murmurs.

“Fairy light, it looked like,” Eric supplies.  “Although I’ve never seen that turn somebody into a racist before.”

“Y’all should ask Sookie about it,” Jessica suggests.  “Maybe she knows.  Would she know?”

Tara shrugs.  “I doubt it,” she says.  “Sookie’s still figurin’ out her own shit, let alone whatever else.  But Jason bein’ a dick is the least of our problems right now.”

“If it was on account of fairy – things, though, it might be wise to understand it,” Nora muses.  “Eventually.  But right now, our priorities are the government mess and dealing with Billith.  That’s going to mean we find his weaknesses, we put a stop to whatever he’s set in motion with his – minions, and we –”

“We’ve gotta kill him,” Jessica interrupts, frowning.

“If you’re gonna get all emotional about it, why did you bother joining the resistance at all?” Pam asks archly.

“Pam,” Eric warns.

“I’m not – I know what we gotta do,” Jessica says.  “I’ll be okay.  My Maker as I knew him’s already dead.  I think I’ve known that this whole time, I just haven’t been ready to say it.  Whatever it is livin’ in his body now – that’s some bullshit he took into himself, that’s a choice he made.”  She nods resolutely, takes the time to smile at each of the others around the table in turn.  “That’s what we gotta kill.”


End file.
